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EZRA POUND 67
a student?' he was asked. 'No,' said Ezra, 'I want to register as a
teacher. I want to give a course on the Romance Literature of
Southern Europe.' 'But we don't want a course on the Romance
Literature of Southern Europe,' he was told; 'besides, who are
you?' 'Let me give the course,' said Ezra, 'and you'll see.' Well,
they let him give it, heaven knows why. And among the students
who registered for the course was a Miss Dorothy Shakespear and
her mother. Ezra promptly fell in love with his pupil and she with
him, and they were married and lived happily ever after."
The elder Pound's recollection of his son's age at the time of
meeting Dorothy Shakespear is faulty—Pound was twenty-five.
And the courtship lasted for several years before they were married.
But the statement that they lived happily ever after is quite true.
John Butler Yeats wrote to his daughter Lily on March 24,
1914; "He (Willie) mentioned that he was to hurry home for Ezra
Pound's marriage. He is to marry Mrs. Shakespear's daughter. She
is beautiful and well off and has the most charming manners . . .
Both are clever, and I fancy Ezra is a nice fellow. As Willie remarks,
when rich and fashionable people bring up a daughter to be
intellectual, naturally she will turn away from the 'curled darlings'
of her own class and fall in love with intellect which is mostly to
wed in poverty as well. I hope it will turn out that Ezra is not an
uncomfortable man of genius." 19
Dorothy Shakespear Pound could hardly have foreseen that she
would have to sit outside the walls of a madhouse for thirteen years,
waiting for a hostile government to release her husband. I never
heard her complain about it, nor do I suppose that anyone else
heard any recriminations from her.
The bridal couple went off to France; a walking tour through
Provence served as their honeymoon trip. Dorothy Pound later recalled
that they used Toulouse as their base for this excursion. They
carried rucksacks and slept outdoors much of the time. These
happy days were interrupted by the outbreak of the First World
War, and they returned to London.
Yeats wrote to his father, December 26, 1914, "The week after
next I go to the Stone Cottage and Ezra Pound will be my secretary.
He brings his wife with him this time. She is very pretty and had a